1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to computer systems for tracking objects and more specifically to a method and apparatus for providing a core representation of the tracking domain which can be applied to new tracking applications with minimal development of new software.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various tracking systems have been developed which permit individuals and objects to be tracked. Such systems have found utility in a variety of industries, including manufacturing and in the airport security. In the case of the airport security industry, for example such systems have been used specifically for badging as well as passenger and baggage tracking. Typically such systems have been constructed using various database products and application development languages.
Over time, efforts have been made to improve these types of tracking systems. Important goals have included increasing the overall performance of the system, upgrading the database back-end to operate with servers having higher speed and capacity, redesigning the operator interface screens to be more compliant with standard Windows applications so that they are easier to use, and redesigning the architecture to promote flexibility and expandability to other application domains.
These systems have encapsulated many of the components of computer based tracking systems into well defined categories or areas which have provided greater modularity of design, made the application easier to maintain, and easier to extend. Accordingly, such systems have made significant strides towards the logical encapsulation of related functionality in major tracking system components. These components include 1) improved user displays and forms which are isolated from the main body of the application code so that the interface can be customized without impacting the main application logic; 2) improved data base interfaces employing the Open Data Base Connection (ODBC) standard library to permit any relational database which provides an ODBC driver to be quickly implemented without impact or change to the main application code; 3) improved of the device interfaces, i.e. the collection of subroutines, libraries, and drivers which provide the interface to the physical devices and sensors connected to the tracking system and 4) improvements to the application code by using object-oriented principles and employing the class and object definition capabilities provided by advanced object oriented languages.
Recently, it has become apparent that despite the improvements in existing tracking systems, they have suffered from a significant drawback in that they were generally limited to a specific tracking application. As a result, such systems have been difficult to modify for alternative types of uses. For example, a tracking system designed for aircraft security could not easily be implemented as a tracking system for auto parts. This has resulted in increased design costs and a lack of consistency across tracking domains. Thus, a need has arisen to develop a tracking system having an overall architecture in which there exist common abstractions which were capable of being coalesced into a common design and architecture. This core set of common components could provide a foundation for applying tracking systems for one particular purpose to other application areas.